Swordsmen of Gor by John Norman

that, save that her head may be lowered humbly, daring not to meet the eyes of the master, and the backs of her hands, not the palms of her hands, may be down on her thighs, which exposes the delicate palms of the hands to the master, a lovely hint of hope and petition. As is well known the small, soft palms of a woman’s hands are sensitive and alive with nerve tissue, though far less so than what they are symbolizing, the moist, pleading tissues of her begging, heated belly.
    “Any woman can be made a pleasure slave,” I informed Pertinax.
    “I should like to think so,” he said.
    A tiny, angry noise escaped Constantina.
    “Where is your whip?” I asked Pertinax.
    “I have none,” said Pertinax. “It is not necessary.”
    “You are mistaken,” I said.
    “Would you dare to whip me?” asked Constantina.
    “Were you given permission to speak?” I inquired.
    “She has a standing permission to speak,” said Pertinax, hastily.
    “In her case, that may be a mistake,” I said.
    Pertinax was silent, and looked away.
    “Would you dare to whip me?” persisted Constantina.
    “That is for your master to do,” I said.
    “He dares not do so,” she said, haughtily.
    “Why not?” I asked.
    “Let us have paga,” said Pertinax, quickly, affably.
    “Serve your master,” I said to Constantina.
    She seemed startled, but no more so, I think, than Pertinax.
    I gathered that this relationship, the ritual serving of drink to the master by a slave, was unfamiliar to them.
    By now it was overwhelmingly clear that Constantina’s relationship to Pertinax was not that of a slave to her master, even should she be a slave, perhaps in some legal sense.
    She picked up the goblet.
    “Both hands,” I informed her.
    She put both hands on the goblet.
    The justification for this grasp is practical and aesthetic, practical in the sense of assuring greater control of the vessel, and aesthetic, having to do with symmetry, and a framing of the slave’s beauty. But, too, in this fashion the position of the slave’s hands is clear. No hand is free, for example, to grasp a dagger, or slip powder into the drink. Long ago, in Turia, it is said that a free woman, armed with a dagger, disguised as a slave, attempted to assassinate a Ubar in his cups. Fortunately for the Ubar the attack was botched. Unfortunately for the would-be assassin, she failed to make her escape. It seems her anonymous employers had had no intention that she should escape, as arrangements for such a withdrawal might have been dangerous, and might have resulted, should confederates be captured, in the exposure of their identities. Fleeing, she had found doors locked before her. Captured and put under the iron, the Ubar would later find much pleasure in her. Too, as she had been of high family in Turia, her public bondage, exposure in triumphs, and such, afforded the populace much delight. No longer carried in her sedan chair by slaves, for whom citizens must make way, she was now less than a tarsk in the city. Surely she had been chained in more than one paga tavern. One wonders why a woman would have risked so much. One wonders if there are secret wheels, and springs, and engines, deep in the mind and heart, which impel one to travel fearful, beckoning roads. One wonders why some women place themselves at risk, why they undertake hazardous journeys and voyages, why they walk the high bridges at night, such things. Perhaps she was, in her way, courting the collar. If so, she found it. It is hard to understand the mind, and even harder, one supposes, to understand the heart.
    In any event, both hands are to be on the goblet.
    She rose to her feet, holding the goblet with both hands. She approached Pertinax. She bent down, and, irritably, extended the goblet to him.
    “On your knees,” I told her.
    Angrily she knelt.
    Pertinax much enjoyed, I could tell, having her on her knees before him. How right she looked.
    I wondered if, somewhere, there might not be a man in